Trading in Woolworth’s shares was suspended today as the company is locked in talks over debt restructuring that may see the high street favourite go in to administration.

Woolworth’s employs almost 30,000 at stores all over the UK.

Another 1500 jobs are in jeopardy at fitted furniture firm MFI is also teetering on the brink of administration in a row over unpaid rents with landlords. 

Other big names in trouble are the UK’s biggest tile and wooden flooring retailer Topps Tiles.

The 320-store chain has seen like-for-like sales fall 18.3% in the past seven weeks. The company has quoted a 27% fall in profits and axed dividends. Topps shares fell 2.5p to 18. Eighteen months ago they were changing hands at 300p.

Bosses at Hull’s KCOM – famous for the city’s cream telephone kiosks – put the company up for sale after shares slumped 80% in the past year, valuing the company at £65 million. When the city council floated the company in 1999, giving local residents share priority, the business was valued at £180 million.

The Government now owns about 58% of the Royal Bank of Scotland at a cost of £2.7 billion to the taxpayer after plans to raise cash from shareholders stalled.

Royal Bank shares closed at 53.6p, a 2.8p, or 5.5%, rise on the day.

The taxpayer is also footing the bill for 43% of the Lloyds TSB group

Lloyds TSB, which is fund-raising at 173.3p a share, closed up 13.3p, or 9%, at 160.9p.

The US Federal Reserve pumped another $800 billion in to the mortgage and credit markets boosting confidence in the economy.

The markets on both sides of the Atlantic closed up yesterday – with the FTSE100 ending up 18 point at 4171 and the DOW up 36 pts at 8479.

The Pound finished the day at £1.535 against the US Dollar and £1.185 against the Euro.

---

For More information on specific Banks use these links

 

• Alliance & Leicester
• Barclays
• Capital One
• Child Trust Fund
• First Direct
• HSBC
• Post Office
• Tesco Savings

Related Websites

• Changing Asset Allocations When I heard the news earlier this week of a...
• What are Mutual Funds and How Do They Work? What are Mutual funds? A corporation trading in mutual funds...
• Dividend Investment Portfolio July 2011 Update I recently had to change the way my dividend investment...

Tags: British Pound, Current Economic Situation, FTSE, Shares, Tax, Tax Payer

This was the threat that Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke delivered to congress to try and squeeze the bailout through the tightest of holes…and they failed the first time. With a little elbow grease, some palm grease and a noose to scare people with, they got it through the second time. Phew bill passed, the market won’t fall 3000 points. Wrong again!

What does it mean that the markets caved in anyway? 

It means that the markets don’t like the bill, and more money from the US taxpayers will be needed to throw at this problem…but that won’t work either. Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson were surprised by the problem when it came up. It was on their watch that these banks ran up the huge exposures to subprime. The allowed it to happen. The market basically has zero confidence in them. The public has even less confidence in them. Why the American Public is sitting by and allowing the very people who allowed this to happen in the first place try to fix the problem is beyond me. Why don’t the Congress and the Executive get put these idiots out to pasture?

Look this is the problem. The markets are working fine! Lots of companies made lots of mistakes…they go out of business….why is that a problem? Strong companies, who didn’t do lots of stupid things, come in a buy up any parts of the failed businesses that are worth money. It’s quite simple really…it’s a survival of the fittest. You mess up, you go broke. Simple. The market decides who messed up by sending their stock prices lower. It’s called price discovery. If no one is prepared to pay $10 for an asset….guess what? It’s not worth $10! Do you see how that works? But the toxic debt that the US tax payer has just been saddled with couldn’t be sold on the open market for the prices that the banks wanted to sell it for. Why? Because it’s not worth what they are asking! The market says it’s worthless. Listen, I have an old pair of socks….I want to sell them for $1m. Will anyone pay that? No…they aren’t worth that much money.

Let the banks go bust…let capitalism do it’s job…sure it will be rough for a while, but it will be faster and less painful if we let people and companies who made mistakes pay for them by standing up and answering to the market instead of crawling to the taxpayers.

---

For More information on specific Banks use these links

• Alliance & Leicester
• Barclays
• Capital One
• Child Trust Fund
• First Direct
• HSBC
• Post Office
• Tesco Savings

---

For all the best deals on Current bank account, Business bank accounts, Savings and Mortgage deals visit the number one Independent Bank Compassion site Bank—Accounts

Related Websites

• Finding the Right Bank A big portion of how you handle your finances will...
• 3 Interesting Facts about Mining Company Coins Collections In the late 1800’s to the mid-1900’s many American coal...
• Can You Trust Online Banks? Jim writes about personal finance at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity....

Tags: Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Markets, Money Markets, Shares, Stocks and shares